


Neo Fantasy Online: Sleepover Edition

by RunaLiore



Series: AkoRin [1]
Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Proxy Marriage (between their MMO characters), Sharing a Bed, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunaLiore/pseuds/RunaLiore
Summary: The first time Ako and Rinko had a sleepover was just a few weeks after they both joined Roselia. After that, it was part of their weekly routine.A short fic about the way Ako and Rinko's relationship might develop over the years, framed in four scenes in which they end up sharing a bed together.





	Neo Fantasy Online: Sleepover Edition

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for the lack of kissing in the text.

The first time Ako stayed the night in Rinko’s room was just a few weeks after they had both joined Roselia. It was ostensible so they could play games together in the same room since voice chat wasn’t really an option for either of them. In Rinko’s case, she couldn’t handle the fact that Neo Fantasy Online didn’t support private voice channels. In Ako’s case, it was because she got banned for two weeks the last time they tried to go into voice chat during a raid, though to her credit those middle-aged men were being gross and making Rinko uncomfortable.

So Ako suggested a sleepover. If all they wanted was to talk though, they probably could have made something else work like an external chat client or even just calling each other on speakerphone while they played. Rinko knew this, and she suggested none of these things. She thought it might’ve been selfish, though maybe it was okay to be that sort of selfish... to want Ako there in the room with her so that she could see her face while they talked.

It was easier for Rinko to understand people when she could see their faces, at least when she wasn’t too nervous to look them in the eye. Talking in text made her prone to panic over every pause or missed phrase. Even in text chat with Ako, sometimes she got lost wondering – was Ako annoyed with her? Was she bored? Did she say something weird that upset her? Even though she knew Ako wasn’t the sort of person to be angry or annoyed over things like that. Sometimes it felt like she was caught in the gravity of something growing at the back of her skull, something that kept shouting all the terrible things that people could be thinking about her and drowning out everything else.

But when she could see Ako’s face, everything was okay. She wondered if it was just easier for her to read people’s reactions when they talked face to face, though she really only felt comfortable enough doing that with Ako and her family, and lately the other members of Roselia. Seeing Ako smile though, she felt silly for worrying that Ako would ever hate her. That’s why she wanted to have a sleepover. She wanted to spend every spare second she could hearing Ako get excited about new loot drops and spell incantations she’d been practicing for her character. It made her feel safe, which made her feel ridiculous but that night, she was too happy to care about ridiculous.

The two of them spent the night playing a new event dungeon until an hour after midnight, Rinko at her desk and Ako sitting on Rinko’s bed across the room with a laptop on her knees. Ako was still bouncing on the edge of the bed talking about the rare staff Rinko picked up from the last boss, but Rinko was already nodding off. She stumbled a bit and Ako jumped up to steady her.

“Ah, Rin-rin, are you ok?”

Rinko smiled faintly. “I’m ok… I just need to go get the futon for you…”

Ako blinked. “Why? Your bed’s so big and cushy, can’t we both sleep here?”

“That,” Rinko’s eyes shifted, “that’s ok with you?”

Ako nodded. “Yeah. That’s what sleepovers are right? I haven’t had one before but I know every time Himari comes over for a sleepover with my big sister they always share a bed.”

Rinko considered that, very seriously, and then her tired brain completely missed the implication. She agreed with Ako and they fell asleep side by side, after whispering and giggling a bit more about Ako’s impression of the last dungeon boss.

That morning Rinko woke up and found Ako curled up and clinging to her, mumbling a bit and drooling on the mattress.

“Ako-chan…” Rinko shivered a bit and squeezed her eyes together to push the sleep out, “Oh… she’s still asleep.”

She smile, raised a hand to cup the back of Ako’s head, and let a couple of her fingers fell into a messy bunch of Ako’s hair.

“Thank you, Ako…”

The bed creaked softly as Rinko started to sit upright, then settled back as Ako rolled over in her sleep and pinned Ako back down. She was snoring into Rinko’s collar now and Rinko gave up on getting out of bed for a moment. For a while she laid there stroking Ako’s hair, carefully working out tangles and knots when she found them and trying not to wake her. At some point though, Rinko’s brain finally woke up and she realized what sort of Sleepover Tomoe and Himari must have been having, and her brain promptly fizzled out. Ako found her about an hour later, still hiding her face in a pillow and covering her ears.

 

* * *

 

 

During Ako’s first year of high school, Neo Fantasy Online released a major update that finally introduced player housing. To buy a house, a player had to be married to another player so that they could move in together and so the natural course of action, as Ako and Rinko saw it, was for the two of them to hold a wedding ceremony in Rinko’s room and invite the rest of Roselia. They invited Tomoe as well, but since Afterglow had a performance out of town, she couldn’t make it in person and Ako settled for a quick call before they began.

Lisa, Yukina, and Sayo all sat around Sayo’s laptop in the middle of the room, craned over and staring at the screen. Because the in-game wedding venue took place in a high level zone, only Sayo’s character was strong enough to attend. They couldn’t watch on Rinko’s desktop monitor, of course, because Rinko had moved her desk to face the door and she and Ako were sitting behind it, side by side with their computers up in front of them. Rinko had a tiny white flower in her hair and Ako was wearing a purple bow-tie (a clip-on). Ako started the ceremony off.

“Thanks everybody for coming to our really cool –”

Rinko tugged on Ako’s sleeve and she knelt down while Rinko whispered in her ear. After that, Ako nodded quickly.

“oh, yeah! Yeah yeah yeah, that’s really good! Ok,” Ako shot up again and grinned while she posed, “Witness this dark ceremony as the heralds of death are bound together with iron forged from hell!”

Lisa smiled, still a big confused. Sayo and Yukina just stared. Behind her monitor Rinko fidgeted a bit and smiled while she glanced at the floor.

“Thank you all… this is a very important ceremony…”

Sayo blinked. “For your characters in the game.” 

“Yes.” Rinko blushed and seemed even happier, and Yukina nodded knowingly. Sayo was still confused. The ceremony went nicely though, complete with a dozen different special effects Ako and Rinko had stockpiled just for this occasion. Rinko’s character wore a set of legendary wizard robes dyed white and silver with a trail of mist following behind her. Ako wore the necromancer raid armor set with the most spikes and chains out of any outfit in the game. Then at the end of a quick cut scene, the two of them were standing in front of their new home in Neo Fantasy Online while Sayo saw a small notification pop up in her chat log with a tiny burst of confetti to commemorate the day.

Sayo brought a cake from the Hazawa café that Lisa served to everyone while Ako and Rinko chatted back and forth about how to decorate their tiny one-room cottage and what quests they needed to start to build a second floor and a kitchen. An hour later everyone else was heading home and by the end of the night, Ako and Rinko were both nearly unconscious at their keyboards. Rinko used the last bit of consciousness she could manage to convince them both to get to bed.

After the first four times Ako stayed over, Rinko stopped asking if she wanted to bring out the futon. When she came over, they both just understood that they would share Rinko’s bed and that one of them would probably wake up clinging to the other. A few times it had been Rinko, caught up in an anxiety dream as Ako tried to shake her out of it at 3am. Laying there with her head on Ako’s lap while she patted her back and worried over her… that almost felt like another part of the dream in Rinko’s memory.

Tonight was a bit different though. Tonight they were both still so excited over their wedding –  in game and between their characters of course – that they couldn’t settle themselves even for their exhaustion. They ended up talking about how they’d like to arrange furniture and décor and what pets they wanted to raise, and then in the middle of a breath Ako’s eyes sparked and she grinned.

“Ah! Rin-rin!” She reached out suddenly and grabbed Rinko’s hand, “Rin-rin, this means I can get you an anniversary present AND a birthday present now!” She seemed incredibly proud of herself for realizing that. Rinko just smiled and sank into her pillow.

“Mm.”

“And then, and then,” Ako said, “When we both get married for real I can get you another anniversary present.” She raised her other hand to her face and posed, “Heheheh… soon I will be able to give you unlimited presents every day of the year.  You cannot stop my dark schemes~”

Rinko didn’t react though, or rather she never heard the rest of what Ako said. _When we both get married for real_ she thought, _Of course… probably, someday, Ako will grow out of wanting to have sleepovers with me and she’ll want to marry someone else. That makes sense…_ and it did make sense to Rinko, in a sort of simple and efficient logic. It made sense, but she still couldn’t get rid of the icy lump in her throat or the tightness she felt in her chest. She held Ako’s hand all through the night.

 

* * *

 

 

A few months later, Ako came over on short notice a week before Rinko’s high school graduation. As Rinko was leaving school for the day, Ako rushed through the gates and met her at the entry hall. By then, Ako was a centimeter taller than Rinko and in her Haneoka uniform she caught almost everyone’s attention.

“Rin-rin, are you busy tonight? Can I come over!?” she’d said, still breathing heavy and with her face strained. Rinko was too stunned to think and stammered out a “Yes,” while everyone around watched them. She wanted to hide inside of Ako’s jacket and stay there until everyone left.

“Ok, great!” Ako said a bit stiffly while she caught her breath. After another measure and a beat, Ako smiled slightly less awkwardly and ran off again, waving as she looked back.

“I’ll be by after dinner so you don’t have to worry about feeding me!”

And she was gone.

 

That night, Ako showed up after 8 looking uneasy. Rinko led her inside and as soon as they got into Rinko’s room, Ako sat down on the edge of her bed and bunched her fists up across her knees. That was a strange night, a long stretch of hours that Rinko remembers vividly and yet not quite entirely. Even after she graduated and left for University she remembered crying as they held each other, she remembered Ako being worried about how little they would be able to see each other outside of band practice, she remembered the way Ako’s fingertips pressed into her back, and more than anything she remembered words. Words and meaning out of order but still perfectly clear to her even months later, words like,

“I promise…  I’ll come back to see you every week.”

“Rin-rin… haha, it’s been so long since I started calling you that. I really don’t want you to go though. I know you have to, but it really really sucks.”

“We’ll still talk everyday… but we won’t have a lot of chances like this for a while, so… can I hold your hand?”

“Ako… you’re so important to me and I don’t know if I’ll be okay on my own…”

“You’ll be amazing, because you’re amazing.”

“I just don’t know… haha… I thought you were coming over here because you were worried and… now I’m the one crying on you…”

“I’m crying too! I’m so dumb I was trying to be cool and not cry!”

“Ako you’re incredibly cool! You’re… you’re really cool. Just being around you makes me feel warm and calm and less like the world is going to fall out from underneath me. Ako, you’re… my dearest friend.”

And then the laughter that couldn’t quite settle smoothly. At some point Rinko cried into Ako’s shoulder while Ako stroked her hair and it struck her that that might have been her best chance to tell Ako what she was really feeling, that she wasn’t just worried about being alone in the neighboring city or that they wouldn’t be able to hang out after school. The two of them cried until they nearly lost their voices and they fell asleep in Rinko’s bed, this time on top of the rumpled blankets and still wearing most of their uniforms. They smiled at each other then, and Rinko wished more than anything that she had kissed Ako that night.

 

* * *

 

 

At the start of Ako’s final year of high school, Roselia gathered in the middle of a family restaurant near Lisa’s University. They performed the night before to a massive crowd, but they weren’t there to celebrate their live show this time. They were all there because, right after the show, Yukina and Lisa stepped into the dressing room ahead of everyone else and when they came out, they each had a ring on their left hand.

Even 12 hours later at the restaurant, Lisa was still beaming at her ring and showing it off to everyone while grinning at Yukina and leaning against her. After they’d all settled in, Sayo folded up her menu and took a sip of coffee.

“Congratulations again, Imai-san, Minato-san.”

Rinko nodded and smiled. “Yes, congratulations. I’m really glad... you two have been together for so long…”

“Hehee,” Lisa grinned and her face flushed, “Well, yeah, of course. We were childhood friends, and classmates, and then in Roselia together, and then – ”

Yukina cleared her throat. “Lisa, you don’t have to list everything”

“It is remarkable,” Sayo said, “The two of you have been inseparable even since Roselia began. In fact we have that to thank for Roselia’s existence today.”

“Ah, haha,” Lisa laughed and grinned again, as if every time she remembered that she and Yukina were engaged she wanted to jump up and shout about it to the entire restaurant. Instead, she glanced back across the table.

“It’s true, but we’ve still got nothing on Rinko & Ako. You two were dating even before we all formed the band, right?”

At that moment, Rinko became an incredibly life-like, Rinko-shaped statue as she stared unblinking. Beside her, Ako just grabbed her arm and smirked while leaning against Rinko’s head.

“Yep! Me and Rin-rin have been dating for four years and eight months, and we just adopted a great arctic dragoncat daughter too.”

Sayo glanced sidelong at her “…In Neo Fantasy?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s – ah, Rin-rin!”

Ako noticed just a moment before everyone else – in the corner of the booth, Rinko was sobbing and her face twisted up while she gasped for air. Before anyone could react, she leaned over and hugged Ako so tight they almost both fell over onto Sayo.

“Ako-chan! Ako! I love you so much! Ako!”

“A-ah, Rin-rin, ah,” Ako’s ears went red and she put her hands on Rinko’s shoulders, “I-I Love you too!”

“Ah, excuse me, miss…”

“Ako, I was so worried… I’m so happy… Ako I love you…”

“Miss…”

“Rin-rin…”

“Miss, if you could, your order…”

All five members of Roselia turned to look at the waiter standing at the end of their table. For a moment no one spoke, and then Rinko spoke up, still sobbing and with her face buried in Ako’s shoulder.

“I’d like the strawberry French toast please…”

“Ah, me too!” Lisa said, and then the rest of the band ordered quickly and Yukina and Sayo shooed the waiter away with a glare.

After everyone was finished eating, Lisa and Yukina and Sayo went on ahead to rehearse for their next show. Over the next two hours Rinko admitted that she was afraid to say anything because she thought Ako would get tired of her or that she wasn’t interested and Ako admitted that she was afraid to talk about it outright because she figured Rinko was older and so pretty and cool that of course she’d want to date someone her age once she went off to University. They laughed at each other, but mostly they just laughed out of relief.

That night, Ako stayed over in Rinko’s apartment and they talked about a hundred things, including communication and also kissing and the fact that Ako was just a bit too tall to fit into Rinko’s bed. That didn’t stop them from trying, though.

 

 


End file.
